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Biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment
Addressing the problems related to the widespread presence of an increasing number of chemicals released into the environment by human activities represents one of the most important challenges of this century. In the last few years, to replace the high cost, in terms of time and money, of conventio...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Baishideng Publishing Group Inc
2017
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5329710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28289515 http://dx.doi.org/10.4331/wjbc.v8.i1.13 |
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author | Febbraio, Ferdinando |
author_facet | Febbraio, Ferdinando |
author_sort | Febbraio, Ferdinando |
collection | PubMed |
description | Addressing the problems related to the widespread presence of an increasing number of chemicals released into the environment by human activities represents one of the most important challenges of this century. In the last few years, to replace the high cost, in terms of time and money, of conventional technologies, the scientific community has directed considerable research towards the development both of new detection systems for the measurement of the contamination levels of chemicals in people’s body fluids and tissue, as well as in the environment, and of new remediation strategies for the removal of such chemicals from the environment, as a means of the prevention of human diseases. New emerging biosensors for the analysis of environmental chemicals have been proposed, including VHH antibodies, that combine the antibody performance with the affinity for small molecules, genetically engineered microorganisms, aptamers and new highly stable enzymes. However, the advances in the field of chemicals monitoring are still far from producing a continuous real-time and on-line system for their detection. Better results have been obtained in the development of strategies which use organisms (microorganisms, plants and animals) or metabolic pathway-based approaches (single enzymes or more complex enzymatic solutions) for the fixation, degradation and detoxification of chemicals in the environment. Systems for enzymatic detoxification and degradation of toxic agents in wastewater from chemical and manufacturing industries, such as ligninolytic enzymes for the treatment of wastewater from the textile industry, have been proposed. Considering the high value of these research studies, in terms of the protection of human health and of the ecosystem, science must play a major role in guiding policy changes in this field. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5329710 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Baishideng Publishing Group Inc |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-53297102017-03-13 Biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment Febbraio, Ferdinando World J Biol Chem Editorial Addressing the problems related to the widespread presence of an increasing number of chemicals released into the environment by human activities represents one of the most important challenges of this century. In the last few years, to replace the high cost, in terms of time and money, of conventional technologies, the scientific community has directed considerable research towards the development both of new detection systems for the measurement of the contamination levels of chemicals in people’s body fluids and tissue, as well as in the environment, and of new remediation strategies for the removal of such chemicals from the environment, as a means of the prevention of human diseases. New emerging biosensors for the analysis of environmental chemicals have been proposed, including VHH antibodies, that combine the antibody performance with the affinity for small molecules, genetically engineered microorganisms, aptamers and new highly stable enzymes. However, the advances in the field of chemicals monitoring are still far from producing a continuous real-time and on-line system for their detection. Better results have been obtained in the development of strategies which use organisms (microorganisms, plants and animals) or metabolic pathway-based approaches (single enzymes or more complex enzymatic solutions) for the fixation, degradation and detoxification of chemicals in the environment. Systems for enzymatic detoxification and degradation of toxic agents in wastewater from chemical and manufacturing industries, such as ligninolytic enzymes for the treatment of wastewater from the textile industry, have been proposed. Considering the high value of these research studies, in terms of the protection of human health and of the ecosystem, science must play a major role in guiding policy changes in this field. Baishideng Publishing Group Inc 2017-02-26 2017-02-26 /pmc/articles/PMC5329710/ /pubmed/28289515 http://dx.doi.org/10.4331/wjbc.v8.i1.13 Text en ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. |
spellingShingle | Editorial Febbraio, Ferdinando Biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment |
title | Biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment |
title_full | Biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment |
title_fullStr | Biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment |
title_full_unstemmed | Biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment |
title_short | Biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment |
title_sort | biochemical strategies for the detection and detoxification of toxic chemicals in the environment |
topic | Editorial |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5329710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28289515 http://dx.doi.org/10.4331/wjbc.v8.i1.13 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT febbraioferdinando biochemicalstrategiesforthedetectionanddetoxificationoftoxicchemicalsintheenvironment |